Alasdair MacIntyre has a new book out: God, philosophy, universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Can intellectual history be well-written? Only if one takes advantage of the latest scholarship, and even that may not be sufficient as one tries to recreate the intellectual milieu of an age.

How difficult is it to determine a theologian's influence at a university or within a religious order? Tracing a school of thought to its founder(s) may be simple enough; but to show that this school had an impact on those who were not members? Can this be done, especially if they are not contemporaneous?